…And it doesn’t look like there was any vetting of questions at the WAC speech:
Of course, one instance is hardly a trend. I was just refuting the claim that:
I’ve listened to lots of World Affairs Council talks and question periods on my local NPR station, and the questions from the audience came from both sides. You won’t get radicals in there, but they are not lockstep Republicans.
The questions shown on TDS last night looked like real ones to me. I think you owe TWC an apology.
The fact that they “serve corporations” is eaisly the more “meaningless boilerplate”, since it just serves to give them a certain amount of gravitas. The fact that you consider that sufficient to call them a friendly audience is risible. Frankly, I’m surprised you’re unfamiliar with that group-- they are noted for hosting all sorts of talks and lectures not tied to any particular party or cause. This isn’t the Cato Institute or the US Naval Academy.
Do you know how much money the gov’t could rake in if they auction off 5 minute slots to question the Prez? Wipe out that deficit in no time. I’d donate some cash to a grassroots organization to buy into the auction.
And the WAC one also. :smack:
I know one of the delegates, and she was so excited that she was going to have an opportunity to speak with the President that she was almost wetting her pants with glee. I’ll be seeing her next Tuesday, and I’m quite sure she’ll not only have been surprised, but disappointed, as well.
Just one more reason to hate that weasily coward.
Auction? Hell no. There should be a futures market for 5 minute question slots. Then the money would really roll in.
If the emphasis in their description of their membership is on corporations, CEOs, and other executives, with everyone else relegated to “other individual members” - no mention of doctors, lawyers, professors, etc. - then doesn’t that say something about what they regard as bearing gravitas? Sheesh.
The fact that you consider that sufficient to call them a friendly audience is risible.
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Why? It’s a fact that rich people are much more likely to vote Republican. It’s a fact that organizations whose membership is business-oriented generally tilt Republican - even relatively mainstream ones like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It’s a fact that Republican policies have been good to corporations and their stockholders over the decades, and Bush Administration policies have been exceptionally so. Maybe my drawing the connection was wrong with respect to this particular group, but there’s no reason why this implication should be regarded as laughable or ridiculous, unless we’ve been translated into Bizarro World.
Then be surprised. I’d never heard of them before opening this thread.
Why? Did I say something insulting about them?
I may have been wrong about them, but I don’t believe I said anything that warrants an apology, unless being Bush-friendly has come to be the sort of insult in America that it should probably be regarded as being, but unfortunately isn’t yet.
There’s such a huge leap from “currently serves over 120 corporate members and their CEOs” to “is Bush friendly”, especially given that they are explicitly non-partisan and are not an advocay group. For instance, how do you get the idea that this group is “business oriented” in the first place? It’s pretty clear that you just wanted to be contrary and pulled up the first thing you could find that hinted at the conclusion you already wanted to draw. Anyone objectively looking for the truth would dig a lot deeper than that to find it.
But a much smaller leap from that to “seems Bush-friendly”.
Look, in order to be part of the Combined Federal Campaign, a nonprofit has to be nonpartisan and not an advocacy group. And every year, the list includes affiliates of Christian Right groups. Need I say more?
Weren’t you reading what you’re critiquing? How else to interpret a membership description like “The [World Affairs] Council [of Philadelphia] currently serves over 120 corporate members and their CEOs, and more than 4,000 other executives and individual members.” See any other groupings in there? I don’t. There’s corporations, CEOS, executives, and others. End.
I went to the “About Us” page on their website, which is where I usually look for some clue about who an organization is. If there’s reason to believe they’re hiding the truth about themselves, I suppose I should look deeper. But that’s the place to go if I’m going to take them at face value.
If it troubles you that I’m taking them at face value, you’ve just lost an argument with yourself.
And John, I know you’re still pissed at me from the other thread, but look: I’ve conceded that my initial reading of the World Affairs Council was wrong. Now you’re going after me for having reached that incorrect (but provisional - that’s what the word “seems” means, that I’m less than certain) reading in the first place. I think I’m justified in having made that initial read, given that it was couched in conditional language. You obviously disagree.
But it’s neither here nor there with respect to the debate in this thread - I’ve conceded the underlying point. Can we move on?
I’m not pissed at you from the other thread. If I was pissed at you, I’d’ve called you a fucking moron. 
I just had enough of talking past each other in that thread.
I missed that. I don’t usually consider a phrase that begins with “maybe” to be a concession, if that’s the phrase you’re refering to.
Bush was playing true to form in ditching the Conference on Aging. He’s always played to pre-selected partisan crowds, and had the softball questions pre-arranged. So, again, no surprise. Any moves now to actually talk to people is just for show, and only because he has been less than “fully successful” - and he may have finally realized it.
From the Newsweek “boy in the bubble” editorial:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10417159/site/newsweek/
On Message: Bush often speaks before pre-screened crowds, with signs stressing his theme
Bush may be the most isolated president in modern history, at least since the late-stage Richard Nixon. It’s not that he is a socially awkward loner or a paranoid. He can charm and joke like the frat president he was. Still, beneath a hail-fellow manner, Bush has a defensive edge, a don’t-tread-on-me prickliness.
It only counts as such when the original assertion was similarly qualified. 